Man, 28, pleads guilty to hit-run that killed Mpls. bicyclist

A 28-year-old Minneapolis man has admitted that he fatally ran over a bicyclist who was heading to a religious observance, then fled from the scene in his truck.

Wesley Gubbin pleaded guilty Monday to criminal vehicular homicide in the November death of Thomas Malloy, 61, who was making his 5-mile ride from his Minneapolis home to a Jewish sabbath observance in St. Paul.

Gubbin's jury trial was to have started Monday morning. The guilty plea does not address the punishment he'll receive at sentencing Sept. 24, according to the Hennepin County attorney's office.

Malloy, an avid cyclist, was crossing the intersection of Franklin Avenue and West River Parkway about 11 a.m. on Nov. 12, when Gubbin ran him over.

Another driver moments earlier reported seeing the pickup speeding by on the parkway, striking Malloy on his bike and never slowing down. Yet another motorist said the pickup tailgated him before passing three vehicles and hitting Malloy.

"The defendant claimed he did not know what to do and just kept driving," according to the criminal complaint. Gubbin waited nine hours before turning himself in to police.

Gubbin's criminal history includes convictions for disorderly conduct in Ramsey County in 2008, operating an off-highway motorcycle in Mille Lacs County in 2005, and second-degree assault in Hennepin County in 2001, when he was 17.